EARLY YEARS AT THE LAWRENCE ASYLUM

 EARLY YEARS AT THE LAWRENCE ASYLUM 

September 6, 1858 was when The Lawrence Asylum was formally established in Ootacamund, in the picturesque Nilgiri Hills. 

Paul Porter, aged 12, son of Private Porter of the HAM Regiment was the very first pupil. He was admitted on October 1, 1858. The first girl was Isabella Wallace, the 11 year old daughter of Sergeant Major John Prince Wallace of the 2nd Light Cavalry, admitted in January 1860. 

 The Lawrence Asylum was initially located in a rented house called "Lark Hill" which had 12 boys and a Superintendent. In May 1859, the strength had grown to 40 boys and they moved to Stonehouse. As more girls joined, separate premises for the Female Asylum was taken at Lower Norwood, in June 1860.

 In the initial years, we surmise it was administered by the Secretary of the Committee, Mr E W Bird.  The first Principal was appointed in 1862: the Rev. T. Whitehouse, MA (Cantab). He was to be followed as Principal and Secretary of the school by many ordained priests of the Church of England all the way upto 1946.

As far as getting there was concerned, the road hadn't reached Ooty yet, and of course the railway was even further away. Horses were much in use. Horse-drawn and bullock carts ferried people and material. 

No one can tell the story of what it was to be a student of the Asylum better than someone who was actually there. A boy called George Andrew Webster was admitted on March 13, 1869 and left the Ootacamund Lawrence Asylum in 1880.

Webster wrote this article years later ( The Lawrencian, 1912) : “I venture to hope that readers of ‘The Lawrencian’ will find a good deal to interest them in this historical account of happening in school a decade after its foundation. I am descended from a family of soldiers. My father and mother married on equal terms, that is to say, he was a widower and she a widow, and each brought a son into the family. They had not a superabundance of this world’s goods, though there were expectations on both sides. I was born in the Nilgiris.” 

“….later in the day when a bullock coach drew up in the square it became apparent that we were on a journey bent-and so it proved- and that journey is one I shall never forget, because it landed my brother William and myself in the Lawrence Asylum at Stonehouse (Ootacamund). 

How was life for the inmates of this institution? 

Webster wrote 32 years after he left The Lawrence Asylum. "In those days we boys were called up at 05.30 a.m. and compelled willy-nilly to have a cold water bath every day, except Saturday when we bathed at 02:00 p.m. in the upper school boys’ cistern. I looked upon this as a terrible ordeal and no excuse was wanting to avoid it. I was either one of the detention class boys or had a cough or some thing like it, but the Sargeant- Major would have none of it. He generally ordered a big boy to hoist me on his shoulders and dip me, and when I was again above water I used to be gasping for breath. Fortunately, there was no society for preventing cruelty to children in those days.

The day following my admission I was ordered to attend the Quarter – Master’s Stores and, pursuant to order, I attended at 3.00 p.m., when that worthy official supplied me with two pairs of strap-buckle boots and a leather belt. He stamped a number on each of these articles and informed me that my number was 29. He then queried “What is your number?” and I answered “29,” whereupon he administered such a resounding box on my ear as to cause the organ to ring noon. To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. “Say 29, sir,” say he, and I replied “29, sir.” He then admonished me not to forget it. 

The nursery boys slept in a small room at the back of the aforesaid building, while the front rooms were used for dining and school purposes by upper and lower schools. The stores and upper school boys’ bed-rooms were located in a long, low building at the top of the hill and known as ‘Stonehouse’. 

The big boys were not without a sense of humour. One of them would ask, “I say, do you want to see London?” and you enquired “What good will it do?” he would say, “Oh! It’s a large place quite full of people and you would see the Queen of England and a lot of other things”. You would then signify your willingness to see this grand place, when that individual would place one hand of his under your chin and the other behind your head and lift you clean off the ground. You were then introduced to other boys as one who had seen London.

Life at Stonehouse was happy existence. We, boys, were allowed to ramble anywhere we pleased-only being expected to be present at meal time.”

Remember, "The Lawrencian" was first published in 1911, that is 110 years ago!